BBC director general Tony Hall will signal a new era of cost-cutting at the corporation on Wednesday and warn of the cultural threat posed by technology giants such as Google and Apple.

Hall will tell an industry convention in Oxford that "tough choices lie ahead" for the BBC in the run-up to the renewal of its royal charter.

He will say the BBC, much criticised for its multimillion-pound payoffs to former senior staff, should be run more like John Lewis, which is owned by its 85,000 partners, than a big bank or financial institution. It is "the BBC, not a PLC," he will say.

"We have a creative sector in this country that is world-beating. The BBC is an essential part of that. And it's British: owned by the British people," Hall will tell the Oxford Media Convention.

"Google is more than double the size of the whole UK broadcasting market. Apple seven times bigger. Today, I believe the BBC's cultural influence still matches theirs. I want that to be true at the end of this charter and into the next."

Hall will say the BBC delivered £580m of annual savings between 2008 and 2012, and by next year will have made cumulative savings of 35% in a decade.

But he will warn that the status quo is not an option, pledging to look again at management and staffing levels and how the BBC is benchmarked against the rest of the industry. He will say the need for further efficiency savings is "essential".

The last licence fee settlement, in 2010, led to a £700m package of cost savings, Delivering Quality First, under former director general, Mark Thompson.

Hall will say the future of the licence fee and BBC efficiencies are inextricably linked, and that the BBC needs to be not only the best broadcaster in the world but also the best run. The corporation has faced sustained criticism in recent months over its bungled £100m IT project, the Digital Media Initiative.

He will tell delegates that the average person in Britain uses a BBC service for three hours a day, at a cost of 3p per hour, with the cost of the licence fee currently set at £145.50.

"I want the BBC to remain a world-class broadcaster," Hall will say.

"That's why we need to keep on modernising. And that's why we need to keep on making the most of every pound we get. Our public service ethos has not made efficiency savings unnecessary or unimportant - it has made them essential. Tough choices will lie ahead, but we must not shy away from taking them."

Hall's speech comes as the debate about the future of the BBC intensifies and the corporation steps up its lobbying efforts ahead of negotiations with the government for a new 10-year royal charter and funding deal. The BBC's existing charter and licence fee agreements run to the end of 2016.

As the BBC looks to make further savings, attention has focused on the future of BBC3 and BBC4, with former BBC executive Roger Mosey, and presenter David Dimbleby, suggesting BBC4 should be axed. Former BBC chairman Michael Grade said the two should be combined, with the BBC "trying to stretch too little money over too much".

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